Getting tabled... and Winning?

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

When you say splitting the points between take and hold, would a unit that took an uncontested objective gain as many points as one that took a contested objective?

[MARK0SIAN]

When you say splitting the points between take and hold, would a unit that took an uncontested objective gain as many points as one that took a contested objective?

Oooh, interesting! Hadn’t thought of that angle. Yeah that might give the second player a slight edge. Player one can jump onto uncontested objectives and score but player 2 would earn more if they took a contested objective off player 1. Might flip it too much the other way or add too much complexity but definitely interesting to think about :)

[OldWherewolf]

On winning the battle but losing the war, I'm reminded of this from a documentary on the Art of War I watched:

 

After the negotiations were completed, a partiularly arrogant American Colonel turned to his counterpart and said "We never lost a battle".  To which the Vietnamese Commander replied "That really doesn't matter now, does it".

 

Tabletop Titans almost always wants to go 2nd.  They have enough terrain to hide almost their entire army turn 1, so whoever goes first has very little to shoot at (if anything).  I think this gives an advantage to melee armies, but also means going first doesn't give an overwhelming advantage.  SMs with OotM usually want to go 2nd, since that's scored at the end of the battle round.  Also going 2nd means when player 1 puts their units up on a point, they face the full firepower of player 2. 

 

So I think terrain setup makes a huge difference.  So what other factors do you think help the player going 2nd?

[Closet Skeleton]

 

I’m not saying they’ve got to play the way I want them to play. They’ve got to play the way GW wants them to play if they want to win. That’s like literally the nature of the game. GW want you to play a game around objectives.

 

 

GW want nor care about no such thing. Official scenarios are just suggestions. There's nothing in the rule book that says 'up to date tournament pack matched play' is any more 'the real 40k' than anything else.

 

 

 

>my response...yeah so do i, except i currently control the field on this section of the battle front so i can go and take the objectives at my leisure 

 

Your troops don't have 'leisure' just because the last turn is over. If you had your entire command structure slain while you wasted veteran troops clearing out every random gretchin what about that is necesarily a strategic victory? In wars some assets are expendable and others are not.

 

The Americans in Vietnam did a lot of clearing out fortified hill positions for no strategic advantage. Using the 'Superpower wasted over a decade against an impoverished country' logic for your wargames might fit some of the ineptitude of the Imperium of Man but doesn't end any arguments.

 

If the battle is an actual definitive struggle for a bit of land and its last man standing then you can play a scenario like that but there's no reason why that should be the 'standard' kind of scenario.

[MARK0SIAN]

 

 

 

I’m not saying they’ve got to play the way I want them to play. They’ve got to play the way GW wants them to play if they want to win. That’s like literally the nature of the game. GW want you to play a game around objectives.

 

 

GW want nor care about no such thing. Official scenarios are just suggestions. There's nothing in the rule book that says 'up to date tournament pack matched play' is any more 'the real 40k' than anything else.

 

 

 

>my response...yeah so do i, except i currently control the field on this section of the battle front so i can go and take the objectives at my leisure

Your troops don't have 'leisure' just because the last turn is over. If you had your entire command structure slain while you wasted veteran troops clearing out every random gretchin what about that is necesarily a strategic victory? In wars some assets are expendable and others are not.

 

The Americans in Vietnam did a lot of clearing out fortified hill positions for no strategic advantage. Using the 'Superpower wasted over a decade against an impoverished country' logic for your wargames might fit some of the ineptitude of the Imperium of Man but doesn't end any arguments.

 

If the battle is an actual definitive struggle for a bit of land and its last man standing then you can play a scenario like that but there's no reason why that should be the 'standard' kind of scenario.

Who’s saying anything about it being a real way to play? You are (as I said) free to play the game however you want. BUT if you want to win you have to win the game GW designed which is based around objectives. If GW didn’t care about objectives being important they wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to make them so important in the missions/scoring system for matched play which is what the majority of pickup games are going to be. How you can say GW don’t want you to try and capture and hold objectives as opposed to just killing your opponent in the game is simply baffling, the rules, even in crusade and narrative literally tell you to go and get some kind of objective.

 

As for strategy, You’re free to use any strategy you like in chess but if you go for a strategy of trying to make pretty patterns with your pieces you can’t then complain that you lost against someone who played with the strategy of taking their opponents king.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

On winning the battle but losing the war, I'm reminded of this from a documentary on the Art of War I watched:

 

After the negotiations were completed, a partiularly arrogant American Colonel turned to his counterpart and said "We never lost a battle".  To which the Vietnamese Commander replied "That really doesn't matter now, does it".

 

Tabletop Titans almost always wants to go 2nd.  They have enough terrain to hide almost their entire army turn 1, so whoever goes first has very little to shoot at (if anything).  I think this gives an advantage to melee armies, but also means going first doesn't give an overwhelming advantage.  SMs with OotM usually want to go 2nd, since that's scored at the end of the battle round.  Also going 2nd means when player 1 puts their units up on a point, they face the full firepower of player 2. 

 

So I think terrain setup makes a huge difference.  So what other factors do you think help the player going 2nd?

 

Tabletop Titans have used a lot of terrain in the games I've watched, that said most of the tournaments that I have attended haven't had that much terrain or the variety of types of terrain they do. Its been a while since I was able to go to one for obvious reasons but I'm not sure how many would be able to match those layouts on a lot of tables.

 

They're also trying to make entertaining games, which I think leads to a bit more of melee focus. That said your bringing up valid points, and with smaller battlefields maybe the terrain will be better than I remember. 

[Leonaides]

Tournaments generally seem to be a bit more sparse with terrain as they tend to struggle with supplying enough. Some go for cookie-cutter terrain same on all tables, some might try a bit more variety but then that can lead to players claiming it was unfair to their army (ie dense terrain helping a cc army vs a bowling ball helping a more shooty army - exagerate but you see my point). If Tournaments offered lower price entry for people to bring along terrain I suspect you'd see a lot more terrain on tables.

[OldWherewolf]

Bringing along terrain is one option.  I also wonder if something like allowing the player who is going 2nd to get 1 CP worth of outflank for free.  There would have to be a restriction, like "during the deployment phase a marker may be placed next to a single unit with a power level <= 10.  After the dice roll to see who goes first but before any pre-game moves, the player may place the unit with the marker into strategic reserves for 0 CP".

 

Basically it's just a way to hide an unhideable unit because of the lack  of terrain.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

GoonHammer has a review up of the changes to secondary objectives in the new chapter approved which makes me appreciate the ability to win while getting tabled a bit more. The main reason for this is because I feel like it got a lot harder.

 

Before you could make a list where all of the various "kill x" objectives were bad choices for an opponent easily, if you had access to good multi-wound infantry/bikes. The problem with that is that some armies just can't dodge them. No prisoners addresses this, it basically counts all the wounds of any models that are destroyed if they aren't a character, monster, or vehicle and then divides the total by 10. So Eradicators are worth 9 wounds instead of the 3 that would have been worth with the old thin their ranks rule. I'm sure you can still design lists where those objectives aren't good choices but it will require more effort.

 

The other big change for this topic is that deploy scramblers has been updated. Retrieve Octarius Data is in ways easier to score, but now you need 4 turns to get 12 points, compared to three turns to get 10. It isn't an all or nothing objective like before and you can score 8 points by the end of turn 3 so I think it may be better overall. That said when your talking about winning while being tabled that drop is a big deal, plus I think the deployment map can affect it more.

 

All in all I like these changes, but I do think they decrease the chances of someone being able to win while being tabled. Personally I like the rule more because I just never liked having a marine hide in corner, I'd just rather go down swinging and get credit for what I did accomplish. So them making it harder really doesn't bother me.